


What Happens Next?

by FaeTamesABear (HoeOfGrimdark)



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst with a Happy Ending, Cheating, Depression, F/M, Mental Illness, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-03
Updated: 2016-11-03
Packaged: 2018-08-28 22:09:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8464834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HoeOfGrimdark/pseuds/FaeTamesABear
Summary: Modern AU. Eleanor Trevelyan and Cullen Rutherford get together. Thom Rainier is left to pick up the pieces. Thom meets Josephine Montilyet who becomes his saving grace, but Eleanor insists on ruining his life while beginning to make Cullen's a nightmare.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This fanfic is kind of inspired by the relationships and characters in The Girl on The Train. I really don't like those fanfics were the Inquisitor leaves Blackwall for Cullen. I wanted to write something different, something that is perhaps more sympathetic :)

Sometimes Thom would drive out into the countryside just to get away from city life so that he could have a cigarette in the crisp cold air in the back seat of his second-hand car. Everything felt second hand recently, clothes, flat and life. Like someone didn’t like something, so they passed on the shitty miserable existence onto himself. He often thought about the same things; where did it go wrong?

It was the same place every other night when he needed to get out. He’d pack a bottle of whiskey in its paper bag (if not, it was quickly bought at the local off license. They knew his face by this point) before a quick drive down to the place outside of town in a little clearing that he could just drive his car into.  
Where did it go wrong? 

The night was cold despite being in the mid of summer. He shouldn’t have opened the window because it was cold but his solution was whiskey. The Scottish often warmed their blood with alcohol and oh boy, were they right! He didn’t even feel the coldness at this point when he was halfway through the bottle with a cigarette in the other nearly done. He promised himself he’d stop smoking, but he said the same about drinking too.

Often enough he’d fall asleep in the car. Part of it was because he was drunk, the other part of it to give his flatmate, Sera a break from him. Sera was significantly younger than him and somehow had her life much more organized than him. When you are younger, you are supposed to be wild and not have things all together. Sera wasn’t the most well-organized girl, but she certainly knew what she was doing. She had her girlfriend who occasionally stayed; Dagna. It was awkward, as he was aware that that Dagna was made uncomfortable by his presence. He couldn’t blame her, no matter how nice she tried to be about it. 

Where did it go wrong?

He couldn’t help in the tipsy state think about four years ago. He couldn’t help think of her. Eleanor Trevelyan. The slithering whore who put him in a constant state of misery. Her hair, every thread so soft and her skin so beautiful that his breath was taken away every time he had run his hands over her naked hips.

He thought about him. Cullen Rutherford. The name came with underserved spite because Cullen wasn’t completely to blame. Sure, he played the fool and took a bite of the strumpet’s apple when Thom was still swallowing seeds. 

It was often on these nights he’d call Eleanor only for 5 seconds. Despite his lingering hatred, he still fell for the tone of her sugary sweet voice. However, he’d always realize how weird it is calling your ex before hanging up and hating himself for it. He decided to sleep in the car as he was too drunk to drive it home. He’d do this then he’d go back to the flat and fall asleep in his room, a small room that used to be the guest room.  
-  
Sera never stopped acting like his best friend no matter how long his welcome had worn. It was his saving grace because he didn’t exactly have a job. He didn’t know what to do with his qualifications and experience if he had any. Thom used to be in the army, and it was for a good ten years but was discharged for medical reasons. He became depressed because of his job; he hated having to hurt people for no good reason, but Thom had no other choose because he didn’t know where else to go.

When he came in that morning after sleeping, holding himself like he was sick, Sera was sitting with her legs crossed on the sofa. If Dagna had been there, he would have gone straight to bed, but it was only Sera.

“Sleepin’ rough?” Her cockney accented voice cut through him as he went to the kitchen to get water. It was one of those days where the thought of touching whiskey made him gag. He needed water and something fattening to eat.

“Aye… I drove out to the spot last night after the gym,” He lied about the gym. He had to cancel the gym a year ago because he had no disposable income. He also didn’t tell her he was unemployed because she thought Thom paid rent but he was still figuring out things. 

“It’s good to see you coping. Thought you were going to off yourself,” Sera said. She was concerned about him. She never voices it well, but she wouldn’t ask if she didn’t care.  
“I don’t think I’m at that point yet,” A chuckle left his lips as he reached into his pocket for his phone. He had a missed call from Eleanor along with a new voice mail. No, he wasn’t going to listen to it. He wasn’t in the mood for panic attacks today even if he could feel one flaring up in his stomach.

Sera knew the signs by now, and she went over to him, “Thom… It's okay… what’s wrong?” Her voice that usually laced around some insult before she stared at his phone, “What does that demon bitch want?”

“I called her last night. I just wanted to hear her voice…” He said, his voice surprisingly quiet as his heart started speeding up. Why did he have to react like this? Why did Eleanor have a hold on him? He didn’t want to bother Sera anymore. He had lied to her about figuring things out.

He’d been figuring out things for four years. Four fucking years.

How did someone figure out things for four fucking years?

Where did it all go wrong?  
-  
Eleanor Trevelyan had lived in a comfy home for nine years. Five years with Thom, four years with Cullen. Everyone who knew Eleanor as being this little girl with a sweet personality. However, she was a very bored girl, and Eleanor did horrible things when she’s bored. She was bored of Thom. She had been fed up with the anxiety attacks, the depression, and the PTSD. She was concerned at first, but then he got in the way, and they stopped leaving the house. She got bored so instead of going to church on a Sunday; she met boys. Cullen Rutherford had no clue, and despite knowing that she was cheating, she manipulated the situation.

She told him (and eventually everyone) that Thom was insufferable, that he snooped through her things. She told everyone that he tried many ways without her knowing to get her pregnant, that Thom was violent towards her and that she was scared he’d hit her if she left him, so it felt like fair game to everyone else. 

She then had the audacity to insist that she wanted Thom to get better. In reality, she didn’t give to shits about him. 

Cullen is working so Eleanor is on a dating website. Some knock off Ashley Madison website. Like Thom, she has become bored of Cullen. Since they have been together so long, Cullen wants a family with her, but Eleanor doesn’t want that. She wants lazy morning sex then being fucked up against a table in the afternoon and then ending the day with being fucked hard. Eleanor can’t be just a wife and a mother; it's not sufficient. She is bored, and if Cullen doesn’t know, it isn’t going to hurt up. 

She has a date today. A small thing where she is meeting a man. She is hoping to end up back at his house because Cullen is working all day. He manages recruitment from the army and sometimes he goes abroad as a reserve. She liked those days the most as she got to go out drinking and having fun. It wasn’t as if she didn’t like Cullen; she had a sexual desire for him and sometimes she wanted to feel his arms around him and have him hold her hips.

She’d felt the same about Thom once upon a time, but now she can barely stand him. Cullen has been getting upset because Thom calls her every night. He doesn’t call for long which is typical. This morning Cullen decided to call him, but he didn’t pick up, so Cullen left a message saying how he was going to call the police if he continued to call them.

Eleanor almost laughed when she heard that. She knew Thom was harmless, but she didn’t tell Cullen that.

Eleanor did her hair, her makeup and felt up her stockings, feeling pretty good about herself before putting on her date dress. A little red number that went to her knees. It was always good enough to get men to shag her. She texted Cullen, telling him she was going to the cinema. She packed a pair of regular clothes before settling outside, ready for her date.

-  
Thom slept the entire day. He lost track of time waking up the next day early morning. He considered getting up and going to the gym, but he had no money. He considered having some whiskey and drinking in the morning, and that’s it for the day. He considered re-doing his CV at the local café. He was a regular at a coffee house when he pretended to be working. He spent his time seeing if there were any jobs in trade and construction.

That was it; he decided to go the coffee house. Thom got up, putting his old second-hand laptop in his backpack before putting a bottle of whiskey in there too. His phone was there; a missed call. Eleanor again. He caught his breath and ignored the voice mail for now.

At the café, he ordered his usual before sitting where he normally did. A sofa next to the window. There were a few jobs, so he put his CV in an email to these employers and waited to hear back. He contemplated phoning his mother. She had left him an email asking if things were okay. She never liked Eleanor so when they broke up; his mother became closer to him.

He had a few more hours until he could head home and his coffee was getting cold. He was about to get up when someone came to the sofa he was sat on. A young woman, dark-skinned and professionally dressed. It caught his breath because she was… well for lack of a better word, beautiful.

“May I sit across from you?” Her voice accented like an exotic fruit that was juicy. 

“Aye, go ahead,” Thom smiled, and she did so, opening her laptop before she started looking away. Thom couldn’t look at her afraid that she’d think he was staring at her. It was like seeing a real life princess. He’d went to order another coffee before heading back to his computer. He stared uselessly at his laptop not sure what he was to do. Thom wasn’t sure what else he wanted to do. He tried composing his email to his mother about, but he chickened out of explaining that things weren’t good.

The woman in front of him didn’t stay long. When she stood up, they met eyes again, and she smiled at him. He wished he had the words to say bye; Thom wanted he could make conversation but this woman, whoever she was, looked like some extremely professional woman with a handsome young husband with a black suit and a Rolex. Thom didn’t believe that he was special, that he was worth smiling at warmly. 

He didn’t think he was important and Eleanor proved that by making him pick up the pieces. That sad fact made him take the whiskey out of his bag when no one was looking and dumped a shot of whiskey his coffee to numb the fact that he continually came to every day that he was undesirable, that he would spend his days being miserable and he couldn’t change that.


End file.
